


The Memoirs of Ederyn Ericsen Smith

by Ederyn (Generex)



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 18:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30008766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Generex/pseuds/Ederyn
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a long-lost scion of Amber ...
Kudos: 2





	The Memoirs of Ederyn Ericsen Smith

Where to begin? My birth? My first arrival in Amber? I have had too many beginnings to easily say “this is where my story begins.” That vexes me still. I miss the time when I innocently thought I understood myself and my world, and my deepest worry was about surviving the next winter.

Very well, I shall start with the beginning of the end of that certainty. 

I was born and raised in the realm of Norwend, in a shadow forever trapped in the “iron age.” At the time of this beginning, it was late spring. I had moved back up to my house on the slopes of the mountain called several weeks before. My garden was planted and growing, I had reestablished my agreements with the neighboring farmers, and I had begun making a pair of kitchen knives for a betrothal gift. I remember that the grass on the hills had come in well, and I expected the goats the farmers kept for me to prosper. 

This was the home I had built myself, and had lived in for years I had not cared to count. It was in a small, mostly level valley facing southward, with a fine view of the slopes below. From there, the sea was where I liked it, just barely in sight on the horizon. I had a small stone house, with a thatched roof and a cover over the smoke hole to keep out the rain. Since it was a summer house, it had a window as well as a door, and I had taken the trouble to cover the floor with flagstones. That was much easier to keep clean than a dirt floor. My summer forge was a separate building, built mostly of wood, except for the firepit and the anvil. I had worked out a way to pump the bellows with a foot pedal, though of course I did not need to use the bellows much. At the steep northern end of the valley, a spring flowed out of the rocks and into a pool, then into a small stream that visitors climbing up the hill to my home found irksome. Above the spring, a large old ash tree provided shade when I wanted it. I knew every stone, the flowers of every season there, and the birds that passed through on their journeys. 

Yes, I love that place still. I could go for days there without speaking to anyone, sometimes longer. The neighbors knew my habits, and though they brought me all the food I could not make myself, and firewood, they only talked to me if they had news. I was, I had become, deeply content with my life there. 

I have not been back to visit it yet. I am not sure that I would leave again. 

On that day, I had the fire well built and the iron heating when I heard one of the neighbors’ boys calling me. All unsuspecting, I subdued the fire a little and set my work aside, hung my sword back on my belt, and went to greet him. He had stopped at the boundary post near the edge of my valley, and Thangbrand Ottarsen, one of the king’s warriors, was with him. The man wore a new short cloak embroidered with seagulls and knotwork, and carried the sword I had made. 

“Thangbrand,” I said, nodding to him and the boy. “What brings you here?” 

“Visitors from a distant land called Montenegro,” he said, looking at me with a curiosity I did not expect from people I had known all their lives. “They came some weeks ago. Now they have learned enough language to talk about themselves, and they say they know of the land called Amber and the kings who rule it.” 

I stared, finding myself unable to breathe for long moments. Finally I said, “Come then, sit and wait while I pack for the journey.” I sent the boy home and seated Thrangbrand on the bench beside my door with a mug of ale. There was the forge-fire and the house-fire to put out, my tools and materials to store away from the damp, and I changed out of my leather apron and the faded old clothes I wore for working. 

“Strange men,” Thrangbrand said from outside. “Those two ships are too big to work, but there they are, anchored in the harbor, and they say they were sailing for half a year in them. They have three masts!” 

“Have you been aboard them?”

“Nah. They are not fools, they only let two or three men at a time aboard, and I had to come to fetch you instead of wait.” 

“I hope they stay long enough for you to have a chance,” I said absently. I was troubled by a vague wisp of memory, an idea that I had seen pictures of big ships with three masts. It would not come clear, and as usual I set it aside and forgot it again. Packing and closing up the house needed my attention. I bundled up the items I had already made, but left my half-wild housecat to fend for herself until I returned. I also carried away the food that would not keep and gave it to the neighbors. 

The journey to the town and the king’s hall was not quite two days, long enough to discourage casual visits but close enough to be convenient. Thrangbrand had brought a horse for me to ride, which let us arrive on the morning of the second day instead of the evening. On the way, he described the strangers’ clothes, the remarkable trade goods they had brought, and what little he had heard about their talk. King Alviss had sent him off to retrieve me almost as soon as he grasped that they knew of my father, whom no one then living had never seen. 

I could see the visitors’ ships well before we reached the town. As Thrangbrand had said, they rivaled the size of the king’s hall, which towered over the houses and workshops clustered around the foot of its hill. The ships made it feel properly real to me for the first time. These were ships, and men, from a land distant enough that unlike anyone else I had ever spoken to, they had heard of the land of Amber. It was a shock, I cannot deny it. There had been times when I wondered if my father’s self-description had been mere invention. 

We rode down the last gentle slope of cultivated fields and into the town, attracting greetings and curious, excited looks. I had done my best to convince them all that it was an ordinary thing to have an immortal man (as we thought) dwelling among them, but I began to worry that this event had undone that work. 

Thrangbrand and I came to the wall around the king’s hall and passed within. There we found that the king and his household, and their foreign guests, were enjoying the fine day on benches set up in the yard. A thrall came and took our horses, while I shouldered my bag and approached the benches. I kept my steps brisk, so as not to show the odd reluctance that I was feeling. Here, too, even my old acquaintances looked at me as if I was new to them.

“I give you good morning, King Alviss,” I said as he rose to greet me. 

“And good morning to you, Ederyn Ericsen,” he replied. He was a redhead whose beard and hair were going to gray, shrewd enough, in my opinion, though not to the standard of either of his parents. 

His wife, Erika, came to bring me the greeting cup, with a few pretty, ordinary words. I thanked her and drank, but I was not even pretending to give these greetings all my attention. Her eyes crinkled with humor at that. 

“Let me make you known to our guests,” Alviss went on. “Here are Mogens ven der Rossvelt, and his bard, Noach Wevers.” I guessed from the flicker of Noach’s eyes at the word “bard” that that was not really the right description of him. The king’s own bard, a woman of venerable years, sat watching us all with sharp green eyes. Four other men were introduced as well. I took a seat on a bench near Alviss and looked them over. 

Mogens was a solid man, with a pale pockmarked face. Noach was shorter, though none of them was tall, and thinner, and had pale brown skin. The visitors all wore tight-fitting socks to the knee, looser trousers above that, and short wide-sleeved tunics and shirts. None of the fabrics, except perhaps the shirts, looked like the linen and wool that we of Norwend were wearing, in our loose trousers and long tunics, or gowns for the women. The visitors all looked back at me with equal curiosity, which was easier to bear when it came from strangers.

When he spoke, I could not understand a word Mogens said, aside from names. Noach listened, then translated what he said into our language, as well as he could. I had to listen closely to follow his accent. “So you are the son of Amber they say. They tell me your father was here many years ago, and said then he was Eric, son of King Oberon of Amber.” 

“That is what my mother told me,” I agreed, “and everyone I knew when I was growing up said the same. It is a story well known here.” 

“And you wish to know what we know,” Mogens said through Noach, cheerfully. He seemed to enjoy imparting knowledge. “I will tell it all again for you. We of Montengro traded with Amber for time too long to count. In more near time, King Oberon argued with our Duke, as we call our ruler, and stopped trade. It is one hundred years, or near that. Our trade is grown in other ways, we look for new trade, we think about a try to contact Amber again. Because maybe King Oberon is less angry now. Yes, it is the same King Oberon always, one hundred years or three hundred years, always the same man. Not different men with same name!” He nodded emphatically. “All know the king of Amber and his children never grow old and die. And one of the sons is named Eric.” 

I sighed, unconsciously, as if to express a thousand words I could not say. 

“Now, we hear talk of a war in Amber, someone attacked Amber, in years nearby. This word comes by long ways, none of it is things we know true. One story says they all are killed, king Oberon and his sons, but few believe that. They are strong and full of powers, how could all be killed? But, it was, must be, a bad war. Only a fool attacks them without strength to match their strength, you see? Perhaps more knowings come to Montengro after we leave, I cannot say more than I know is true. I will not guess. It is too important for you, yes?” 

“Important,” I repeated. “Yes.” That was the truth, but I was also uneasy. I had long since stopped worrying at the question of who my father really was and where he might be. This sudden arrival of news reminded me of darker days. 

Something of this may have shown in my face, for Mogens paused, eyeing me, then spoke quietly with his companions for a few moments. Finally he shrugged and turned back to me. “You look not happy, Ederyn Ericsen.” 

I shrugged. “There was a time when I cared very much about my father. No longer.” 

While I hesitated over whether I was willing to say more, the bard spoke up. “I told them all that I know of your history, Ederyn,” she said, and smiled a little. “You once told a bard you wished to leave the past in the past. I hope I did not trespass by taking the task of speaking of it out of your hands.” 

“You did not,” I said, relieved. “I thank you.” What she knew was far less than the whole of it, but it would do for these people. 

Frowning, Mogens asked, “Is it still so? That you wish to leave the past in the past?” 

“This is different,” I admitted. “Before, thinking of these things was as useful as trying to count all the stars in the sky. You coming here … changes that. Very suddenly.” 

“I see,” he said, nodding. “It is surprise. You dislike surprise, eh?” 

I chuckled, feeling some of the tension that had crept into me release. “That is so.” 

“It is surprise to us, also, but we are looking for new things and surprises,” Mogens said. “I am glad to meet you, Ederyn Ericsen. We will have more to say to each other, when your surprise is gone. We are in no hurry to leave.” He folded his hands on his lap and looked satisfied. 

“I thank you for your courtesy,” I said. 

My countrymen, however, seemed disappointed. It turned out that one thing they had talked about with Mogens was how to perhaps demonstrate that I was really one of the family of Oberon, by showing my strength and fighting skills. 

“I am not that good a fighter,” I protested, hoping to avoid a trial of strength.

Thrangbrand snorted. “Ederyn, you practice a third as much as any man, and I still have to work hard to keep up with you.” 

“Only because of experience,” I said. 

Several of the others disagreed aloud, and Thrangbrand said, “Only in part.” 

Mogens said, and Noach translated, “What about wrestling?” 

Silence greeted the suggestion. “Very well, I will spar with you, Thrangbrand,” I said, sparing them the need to admit they did not wish to experience my strength again. “And anyone else who wishes to.” 

During the business of getting up and rearranging the benches, I saw the bard speaking with Mogens. She was probably explaining, quietly, that no one wanted to wrestle with me because I was too strong. 

Thrangbrand was a very good fighter, one of the best whose training had been finished off by starting to spar with me, when I was in town and needed the practice. He bounded to his feet cheerfully, but settled once we faced off. They all knew that I do not treat fighting as a game. I won the bout with swords, and he the one with axes. The other three who were at my level lined up, and overall I won most but not all of the bouts, the same as usual. The truth is that if I had wished to try, I could have become even better and left them all behind. I had never tried, partly because I am more interested in making things than in fighting, and partly because I wished to remain friends with them. 

I was nicely warmed up when we finished, and gladly accepted a cup of ale from a servant. The Montenegrans were very quiet, I noticed, amid the noise of my countrymen laughing and congratulating each other. Later I learned that this was the first time they had seen any of the men of Norwend sparring in earnest. 

“A good display,” Mogens said, with close to the ease of speaking that he had shown before. “And now I see it is time for the meal, yes?” Tables had been carried out into the yard, waiting for us to stop taking up most of it for the matches. We ate together, and then the Montengrans went back to their ships. Now that they had met me, Mogens explained, he needed to talk with the others. 

King Alviss insisted that I stay in the hall for the night, though I went out to do my errands. In the evening he brought out his best mead and gathered in his close advisors, and me, to talk. “Ederyn,” he said. “Here is a thing you need to know. When we first told Mogens about you, he was amazed and very interested. Very interested.” 

“He looked greedy,” the bard put in. “He controlled it quickly, but it was there in his eyes.” 

“And he implied, Ederyn, that his people might be willing to help you travel to Amber,” Alviss finished. He watched me closely as he said this. 

I had thought of that possibility already, of course, in the hours while I delivered the things I made and also walked aimlessly around the town, coming to terms with the news I had already received. So I nodded, turning my cup in my hands. 

“Do you want to go?” the king persisted. 

I looked up and met his eyes. “Do you want me to leave?” 

His breath huffed out and he sat up straighter. “I would be mad to want you to go.” 

I smiled wryly at this reflexive response. “Thank you for that.” 

“Truly,” he said, gesturing with his cup. “It would be like the mountains disappearing if you go. I would have to face the Althing if I tried to make you. But none of us could hold you if you wish to leave. And you are a free man of Norwend. No one has the right to tell you whether to stay or to go.” 

I nodded, staring back into my cup, noticed that my shoulders had bowed with tension and forced them straight again. Our little group was a pool of quiet at one end of the busy hall, where chores and games were going on while I thought, a background noise as familiar as my own clothes. 

“If the answer was ‘no,’” the bard finally said, “would it be easy to say, Ederyn?” 

“It would,” I said, and suddenly felt lighter. “But if I leave, I will have to travel on a boat. It is a hard thing to choose.” They chuckled, and I drank another swallow of mead. It was always a pleasure to see people like the bard grow to be wise, especially when they gave me good advice. 

“Well then,” Thrangbrand said heartily. “The mountains are going to sail away. We shall have to give them a magnificent leaving-party, eh?” 

“First, we have to see how much of their trade goods these foreigners will leave with us,” Alviss said.

“And they will have to invite me,” I pointed out. “Perhaps something will change their minds, first.” 

They all thought that was unlikely, and they were right, though there was a lot more talking before that. Mogens returned the next morning, with Noach and a rail-thin, dark-haired youth introduced as “Bodil, our way-finder.” 

“I wish to know you better, Ederyn,” Mogens announced. “Show me, if you will, what you would be doing if we were not here disturbing you.” 

“All right,” I said, and had to think for a moment. “This way, then.” I led them into the village to my winter house and forge, which were stone-built and attached to one another. “If I had an apprentice right now, we would live in this house. This is the forge.” I opened the door of the latter to let them peer inside.

The neighbors’ second oldest daughter popped out of the house opposite, dusting flour from her hands. A crowd of younger siblings peered out of the door behind her. “Will you want the house opened up then, Ederyn Smith?” 

“No, thank you, I am staying at the hall.” She looked at the foreigners with interest, her blonde braids gleaming in the sun, and young Bodil flushed beet-red. I went on, “We are going out to the farm for a while.” 

“See you later, then,” she said cheerfully, and watched us go. I left the door of the forge open to show that I would accept work. I had an idea that many of the townspeople would find things that needed repair, just to be able to lay eyes on the strangers. 

“You leave it open,” Mogens noted, through Noach. “No one will steal from you?” 

“Steal?” I said, shocked. “Here?” 

“I see,” he replied.

I led them out onto the road running more or less parallel to the sea, and found that I had to hold my pace to an amble in order to let them keep up. Between that and pausing to gossip at the houses along the way, it took at least twice as long as it should have to get out to my largest farm. The tenants were a freedman and freedwoman, who fed us a noon meal along with their household, and reported on the progress of the spring planting and lambing. They had a good solid longhouse, built of stone to shoulder height and wood above, well thatched, and several outbuildings. It all ran with little attention from me, and kept me in food over the winter as well as their family. 

Their oldest boy, about ten years old, was as lively as I remembered, and peppered the visitors with questions. Mogens seemed a little surprised, I thought, but answered them as well as he could. As we walked away down the road, he said to me, “Your people put little control on their children.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“That boy and his talk, others along the way … that girl at your house, all speaking to men as if they are also men. Why is that?” 

I stared at him for a moment. “Why should they not?” At the time, knowing no other way, I could not grasp where his question came from, or explain that we had no idea of children needing to be forced into obedience and attitudes of respect, at least if they were free people. Norwend is a hard land, but it values the bold spirit all the more because of that, I think.

Mogens shrugged and let the matter drop. The walk back to the town took less time, partly because the visitors seemed anxious to get back. It was a fine, warm day, with birds flying overhead, flowers blooming, and the plants and animals busy growing under the sun. I looked toward the mountains and tried to imagine not seeing them again. 

At my forge in the town, the three visitors sat or stood in the forge and watched while I built up the fire and then repaired a succession of pots and knives, and one necklace, with the spare tools I kept there. Then Thrangbrand turned up with his sword. “It’s old,” he said, oddly diffident. “I know you made it, but age wears on things.” 

“It does,” I agreed, taking it and drawing it out of the sheath. It was a plain blade, as I usually make, its hilt and pommel decorated with gilded knotwork. I tapped along the length of the steel with a fingernail, listening to the sound it made, though in truth I was mainly feeling my way along the metal, as if it was an extension of my arm. “Still sound,” I reported. I inspected the hilt and added, “But let me replenish the gold here, it is wearing thin in places.” 

While I busied myself with that, Mogens asked Thrangbrand, “How old is this sword?” 

“Ederyn made it for my grandfather.” 

“Are there many swords that old here?” 

“No. Swords often see hard use, and break, even the ones Ederyn makes.” 

“They also are lost at sea,” I pointed out. 

“True. Or buried in barrows, or taken in battle in places away from here,” Thrangbrand agreed. “And there are only so many of them to begin with. Ederyn makes the best swords, and he does not make them for just anyone.” 

“Who is not ‘just anyone,’ then?” Mogens inquired.

“Oh … I have never thought about it,” Thrangbrand admitted. 

A pause invited me to put in my thoughts. I ignored it, concentrating on the gold that I had melted in a crucible. 

“Let me think,” Thrangbrand said. “The last one that I know of was … for Red Snorri, several years ago, when he was going to fight a dragon we had heard about.” 

Noach did not know the word ‘dragon,’ and I finished adding the new layer of gold while they found words that communicated the idea. 

“And did this sword help him?” Mogens asked. 

“He has not come back,” I said, inspecting the finished hilt. “And we have not heard from any of them that went, whether they found the dragon or are still looking for it.” 

“Or found some pretty girls and stayed with them instead of coming back,” Thrangbrand said lightly. “Maybe one day a tale of them will reach us.” 

I gave Thrangbrand his sword, warning him to let the hilt cool a while more before he touched it. “King Alviss has a sword I made for his grandfather’s father,” I noted. “The owners of the others live on their farms.” 

“Why do you rarely make swords?” Mogens asked me directly. 

I let a smile touch my lips. “My apprentices need such work too, and their swords are almost as good as mine.”

Mogens seemed to give this answer more thought than it deserved, but said nothing more. A short while later he announced that they were returning to their ship for a time, before the evening’s meal and entertainment. It never occurred to him to ask how long the kitchen knives and horseshoes I made usually lasted.

That evening, Mogens brought Noach and a mostly different assortment of men to visit the king’s hall. The sky had clouded over, hiding the sun, and we ate indoors. Instead of sitting near the back of the hall, as I preferred, I again sat near King Alviss and his guests. They had brought with them some drink they called brandy, in a container made of a smooth, shiny stuff we had never seen before. “Glass,” Mogens said, and let me hold it. “Have care, it will break like pottery.” I was amazed by it: the same basic stuff that sand and rocks were made of; as I handled it, I sensed that it had been heated until it melted, and then shaped into this “bottle.” I gave it back reluctantly, wondering how the makers had gotten a fire that hot, and whether I could do the same. 

The brandy was harsh in the mouth, unlike mead, but probably as strong. I let my one taste of it be enough, and thought about how if I went with these men, I might be able to learn how to make glass. I even asked if it was made in Montenegro, but Mogens said they had not the secret. They made the brandy, but the glass bottles came from another place. 

Perhaps they knew how to make glass in Amber. 

After the meal, the bard brought out her harp and played a song about the coming of summer. Mogens nursed a cup of his brandy, and Noach listened hard to the song, leaning to murmur what I assumed was a translation to his fellow foreigners. When the chance came, Mogens had Noach ask the bard, “Are there songs about Ederyn?” 

“Certainly,” the bard said, and paused thoughtfully. “Here is the beginning of the saga of the war against our King Adelbert.” That was about a quite old series of events, when one of the more stupid of that unwise king’s thanes raided a neighboring region often enough to unite all its warriors and thanes in a war against us. My role, according to the song, was chiefly to advise the king on ways to restrain his thanes, though there was also a speech by me employing flattery to try to convince the aggressive thane to stay home, or at least pick another target. It was mostly true in outline; the speeches were all cast in proper poetic form, though, which was not how I or anyone else usually talked. 

The saga did not bring up the subtle ways I assisted in the later defense of the town and the hall, since I had kept all those uses of my powers very secret. To my people, the only really unusual thing about me was my long life; smithing itself was deemed a kind of magic, so what I added to it passed with little remark.

The visitors listened to Noach explaining the song, while the bard rested and drank barley water. Then Mogens spoke up again. “I perhaps was not clear,” he said through his translator. “I mean, are there songs about only Ederyn?” 

The bard smiled. “Any saga about him would be very long,” she said, “and be mostly lists of horseshoes made and cauldrons mended.” 

I chuckled along with the rest, and raised my cup to her. 

“There is one shorter song,” she went on, and looked at me. 

I grimaced, then shrugged. “Go on, then,” I said.

“I should first say,” the bard said, “that this song was made by a bard who never came here or met our Ederyn Smith.” And then she played the “The Iron-Hearted Smith.” The rest of the hall went breathlessly quiet, since bards never played it if they knew I was there. It imagined me, though not by name, as a cold and lonely man who had made a cage of iron to keep his heart in – all because since the wife of my youth died, I had stayed unmarried for generations. It had been quite a long time since I had heard it. 

Noach, and then Mogens and the others, listened with great interest. Finally Mogens asked, “It is true that you have no children?”

“Jah,” I said, too shortly and too grimly. Rather than provoke any expressions of pity, I added, “Even though that bard loved his little story too much, and pretended that no marriage is the same as no fucking.” I even managed a twisted smile, and our tablemates laughed. 

Mogens grinned a little, too, once my words had been translated for him. I could see that he had not missed my display of feeling, but asked no more about that. The bard, freed from difficult requests, went on to some rollicking songs that the hall could sing along with. In all, I thought the evening went well. Mogens was obviously satisfied at last, because when he had drunk from the leavingtaking cup, he had learned enough to offer words of praise, and he added pleasantly, “Tomorrow, King Alviss, we talk trade.” 

The next day I watched curiously as a large contingent of the visitors, this time with obvious armed guards, brought samples of their trade goods onto the beach. The king and his advisors met them on the grassy bank above the sand, with their own bundles of goods. With an eye toward any reprovisioning the ships might need, ours included dried fish, barley, and other foodstuffs, along with strings of amber beads and lumps of raw amber, tanned hides, some linen and wool cloth, and other such things. And there were also, brought out with a flourish, a half-dozen pieces of jewelry made by one Ederyn Ericsen Smith. The visitors offered lengths of cloth made of things called silk and cotton, an array of glass bottles, and so forth. The negotiations ran on for hours, of course. 

It was a fine day for sitting in the sun and watching others work. Knowing nothing about the Montenegrans’ real markets for their own goods, I could not guess at how much they really valued them, but I tried to keep track of the exchanges and make guesses. They were seasoned traders all, however, giving away few hints about their real feelings. 

Finally they tied off the bargaining, with apparent satisfaction all around. While the actual shifting around of bags and barrels of goods started, Mogens and Noach walked over to me. I moved the tabby cat that had found me off my lap and stood to greet them. 

“So, Ederyn son of Eric,” Mogens said. “I am not asking to bargain with you. I offer to bring you to Montenegro, where I think the Duc will be pleased to make a journey to Amber for you. And for him, of course. But you must know, I cannot be sure he will do that. But also, trade ships go to many places from Montenegro, and if it must be, you could travel to Amber that way.” 

“I see,” I said. From that spot, the ground sloped upward to the town, with the king’s hall on its mound standing above it, and the hills and mountains rising up beyond that. To go would be hard. To stay, and perhaps to never know my father – I had come down out of the hills because it was impossible to not come and see these people and learn what they knew. It was just as impossible to imagine not going. Especially when, faced with the decision, I realized that half of my reluctance came from a fear of traveling into the unknown. 

“I will come,” I said. Mogens, I think taking his cue from my sober expression, only nodded matter-of-factly. “I will need … three or four days to settle things here,” I continued.

“Of course,” Mogens said. 

So I borrowed a mule, and Thrangbrand, and went back up into the hills to get the things I wanted to keep and the things I wanted to give away, including my favorite cat. My land, except for the house on the mountainside, I sold or gave to the tenants. I had rather more gold and silver, and gemstones, than anyone knew, as well as jewelry I had made to please myself or to practice. I packed most of it into a small chest to bring along. It would surely come in handy if I had to make my own way to Amber. The other chest, somewhat larger, held everything else except my chain mail shirt, my shield and helm, and my sword. 

The leaving-party was long, and loud, and as usual I could not drink enough to get drunk. The Montenegrans’ ships sailed on the morning tide, and I went with them, leaving my distant kin and comrades to suffer through their hangovers without me.


End file.
